Just a little tidbit to add..........

I thought about Jesse Beck shitting his pants on the sideline just now, and I threw up in my mouth. Those of you who remember our 8th grade know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. How is that for a mental picture?

Why the hell could we never beat Louisville?

Think about it- as a class, we were 36-7. All 7 of those losses were to THREE schools. We lost once to Clinton (in fact, we never beat them until 11th grade- those guys had our number). We lost an infamous 4 times to South Panola (but we finally got the better of them), but if you guys remember, we played Louisville twice and they beat our ass each time. We opened our varsity careers against them which we responded with a resounding 21-7 loss. If you remember, this kept our losing streak going for another week before we finally beat Meridian ("Coach Pogue cried.....seriously") after losing 3 games and tying the last game of our 8th grade season, and then after our 0-7 9th grade season, this game brought our winless streak to 12 games. Well, after our run to the North Half Championship game in 1997, we opened up ON THE ROAD at Louisville the next season in a game Coach Justice called "personal" because of his history there. I do remember a few things about this game- first, Beaver trying to tackle Michael Goss. Also, we put the ball on the turf maybe 5 times. In fairness to BoBo, he was probably fighting jitters out of this world. The Wildcats made the most of it and wound up beating us 20-2. Despite being one of the greatest high school football teams in Mississippi history, the Louisville Wildcats can take pride in the fact that they still have never lost to us.

The "Bully Story"

One of my favorite Justice stories had to be the one he told about dealing with bullies. It went something like this:

"Growing up, I was very poor. We didn't have indoor plumbing until I was 14. When I was 11 though, they sent me up to the big county school in Fulton for the 5th grade after going to a one room school for the first 4 grades. Back in those days, lunch was a quarter at school. It was all my family could do to afford that $1.25 a week to buy my lunch. Also in my grade was a bully who was 14 years old. That son of a bitch stole my lunch money everyday and would kick my ass doing it. My teacher was worried and sent a note to my mom telling her about it. She wouldn't give me any extra money to pay for lunch and told me to stand up for myself. So, one day I came in early from recess and I got a chair and put a dictionary in it. As soon as that mother fucker walked in the door I hit that son of a bitch right in the damn nose. Now he whooped my ass......but he decided that hit in the face wasn't worth 25 cents."

I still laugh about that one.

Preseason Family Dinner- 1999

Our senior season, Justice arranged a covered dish dinner in the fieldhouse for all players and families to attend. This turned out to be a great idea and was alot of fun, and I got some great pictures from this event that I still have today. However, in the middle of this thing, Justice called all the parents upstairs to talk to them. In the car on the way home, my parents told me the speech went something like this:

"Moms, Dads, I just want you to know that we're gonna take good care of your boys. I really appreciate you all being here tonight, you know the one thing that I regret in life is that mother is no longer here. I would give anything to have her walk through that door right now. She always told me to watch my language, and she was embarassed to come to my games because of the way I talked. Parents, believe me, I know I cuss too much, and honestly I'm ashamed of my language, but where I come from, you can't get somebody's attention by singing Kumbaya."

Unbelievable.

Big Hit

I remember on a rain day once, we went Oklahoma in the turf room. Like most little receivers did, we would always try to match up with the other little guys on defense. After seeing my opportunity come with William Ogle, I jumped to the front of the line. However, after getting the handoff, Phillip Muzzi, not only missed the block, he missed Damien Wilson COMPLETELY. Damien hit me so hard all I saw was my feet go over my facemask and I had a pain in my neck for two days. I know this hit was ferocious, because two private school guys came to watch that day because they were "starters" at MRA and Canton Academy and wanted to come play with the big boys. In the middle of practice, not long after my hit, one of them looked at Buckles and said "I don't believe I want none of that", and left. Never saw his fat ass again. I also believe that was the same day that Sharegus drilled Ben Strain and the day that Keith got laid out too- that was a memorable practice.

"30 Hinge"

In preparation for Clinton in 1998, Justice had us down on the dry erase board in the turf room drawing a new draw play called "30 hinge". I knew the second he told us it was going to BoBo and not Artha we were in for it, because why would a play have 30 in it but go to the tailback? We aren't dealing with two rhodes scholars as our tailbacks, so I knew this would be fun. After drawing the damn play up and explaining it for what seemed like an hour. Justice attempted to write "30 hinge" on the board. He got "h". Then, after erasing both e and i, he goes "well shit, how the hell do you spell hinge?". Afraid to speak up and trying to keep from laughing, I wasn't ABOUT to open my mouth. Justice looked at the other coaches, and they seemed to be the same way. Finally, Justice goes "fuck it, let's just call it the Clinton Special". He has a master's degree, seriously.

Coach Justice Random Tradition #3- "Calling us out of class for no reason whatsoever".

How many times did we here Mr. Kent, Mr. Lucas, Mr. McGehee, or one of the assistants say over the intercom, "can I have all the football players report to the gym immediately please." Always excited by this, we were always greeted by Coach Justice. However, the reasoning behind these meetings sometimes were confusing. I remember once he called for all MALE athletes. He spent the entire 15 or so minutes were there talking about "being tough" and how the soccer team was playing well because they were "bowing up on folks", and how the basketball team lost to Warren Central because "they weren't very tough". So, with PE period under an hour away, he simply ended his "toughness" speech with, "oh shit, you guys better get back to class."

Another one of my favorites was the time I was in 9th grade and he called us out of class early in the day to talk about "the relationship between a coach and a player" all he talked about was how if we played hard for him, he'd be there for us no matter what. My favorite line was "if Derrick Garner comes to me and needs something, then by god that's the LAW!".

However, my favorite was when I was still in 8th grade. After beating Mendenhall for our first win of the season (the game where Artha threw up all over the field after an 80 yard TD run), Justice walks in, INTERRUPTS Coach Breland and says. "Fellas, don't it feel good to come to school today as winners? I mean Mendenhall is always one of the better football schools, and you went down there and beat their ass. Now Coach what play did you score that first one with?" After being told it was 30 base, Justice goes. "Well by god, Artha, I guess you was just too rough! See guys, you have to line up every play with the attitude that "this is the one". You have to think you're gonna score every play." Then he left. Add any more impromptu speeches we got from the man.